Memoirs (Vieux Souvenirs) of the Prince de Joinville eBook

Falaise was the culminating point in our journey as far as incidents went.  We were to make a halt there, and, as fifteen battalions of the National Guard were collected, the aide-de-camp, who did duty as quartermaster too, had seen to getting suitable mounts for the King, for us, and for Marshals Soult and Gerard, who accompanied us.  The famous fair at Guibray, near Falaise, was just over, and a circus which had come to enliven it was still there.  The circus horses were laid hands on, and when we arrived we were agreeably surprised to find fine white horses awaiting us instead of the ordinary nags and troop-horses we generally had to ride.  So we got into the saddle, and the review began.  Just as the King reached the right flank of the line, the band began to play, and then an unforeseen event occurred Our proud coursers, thinking that they were at a performance, set each of them to do his own particular duty.  The King, Marshal Soult, and two others of our party were riding the horses who did that trick called the “Grand-Ecart,” in which all four horses draw together at the same moment.  When their riders pulled at their bridles, the four horses, feeling themselves reined up, instantly fell into the usual circus canter.  Another horse kept wheeling round and round, and confusion became general, nobody guessing what had happened until the aide-de-camp smote his brow, and stopped the band.

The trouble did not end there.  The National Guard was in proud possession of one gun, which it had horsed somehow or other.  A jolt broke the axle-tree, just as it was going past.  Then there was a half-squadron of cavalry mounted on stallions or geldings.  But the trumpeter was on a mare, which fact brought difficulty on poor Rosinante during the march past.  In the evening there was a great ball in a huge temporary shed, with tiers of seats all round it.  All of a sudden half the tiers collapsed, like cards, and all the ladies were to be seen, though almost unhurt, on their backs with their legs in the air, amidst a most awful dust!  I must confess we ungallantly seized the opportunity of the confusion to go off to our beds.  The King, too, did the same, thus escaping from the persecutions of the Polish refugees, interned at Falaise, who had come to the ball in lancer uniforms worthy of the merry-andrews at the opera balls, to pester him with their petitions.

CHAPTER III

1834-1836

My technical education recommenced more vigorously than ever when this journey was over.  It had been decided that before being definitely placed on the Navy List I must pass my public examination as a first-class pupil at Brest.  So I was prepared accordingly, and received those successive doses of instruction which the English designate by the characteristic word “cramming,” for which the only French equivalent I can find is “gaver.”  My mathematical teacher held a class for a limited